


The Silver Gate

by HellyOHaint



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, anti-religious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-08 06:02:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18888634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HellyOHaint/pseuds/HellyOHaint
Summary: Post Season 4 so obviously SPOILERS! Lucifer smolders in Hell, Chloe languishes on Earth, and their unrest brings unease in all of God's kingdoms. Rumblings of a second rebellion insight both angels and demons and God isn't happy. Especially about the second, more secret prophesy that might mean the end of God's rule over Earth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “Offered a place in the sky  
> between Castor and Pollux,  
> I’d still say no.
> 
> What’s Heaven worth,  
> minus you?”  
> Ovid, The Amores

Lucifer began his nightly ablutions by scrubbing the blood off his hands. Even after he changed from his true devil form into a man, the blood still stained. The Master of Hell spent his days assisting damned souls with their own torture but in the secret chambers of his room each night where no demon could see, he took human form. When his cracked red hide melted to alabaster flesh, he could touch himself as he wished that Chloe could. He would curl up in bed under black satin sheets and imagine her human skin pressed against his. He could pretend they were the same. When hellfire lit up his room in the morning and his demons cried his name, he remembered with anguish that they were not. 

There was one thing about Hell that gave him a kind of peace that Earth could not offer. He hurt no human soul that didn’t ask for it. There were no lies in Hell; all guilty souls begged for the punishment they deserved. Lucifer took this one good aspect with him to Los Angeles but he was met with nothing but artifice. The guilty claimed they were innocent and fought justice. The ignorant and talentless purchased praise and respect. The truly good were rewarded with mediocrity and loneliness. His own human form made him lie to himself about his feelings for Chloe until it was too late. Lucifer should have known by now that the Law of Earth would state that the moment he declared his love to the detective, he would be bound for a world of eternal hate. At least he knew what to do with his heart here: lock it up and harden it to stone. At least until the small hours of the morning brought him memories of half-actualized love. 

Then the fires were lit and he was Devil once more. He strode down the granite corridor, crackling hooves on stone. Lampblack, an inky colored demon, was trotting to keep up. “There’s a matter that requires your personal attention, Master! A new soul has requested you personally.” Lucifer was both irritated and bored by this. “I haven’t done personal requests in decades. Not since every musician down here insists on punishing themselves with ‘Freebird’. I only participate in private hells when absolutely necessary.” “But you will want to see--” Lucifer’s eyes blazed like the blue root of flames at the presumption of the demon’s interruption. Lampblack gulped and begged his pardon. “Forgive my impudence, Master. I believe you will find this necessary.” Lucifer didn’t want the demon to see his exhaustion so he masked it with curiosity and nodded his consent. Apparently, Lucifer still had the artifice of Earth within him. 

Lampblack led him into a chamber where a priest with his torso unraveled was suspended on an upright rack. His skin and entrails glistened against knife-like pinchers that flayed open his flesh. The priest shrieked at the sight of the Devil.

“Please! O Satan, you have finally come to finish your war against me! I’ve fallen to your influence too many times so I know that I am yours. I spent my life trying to live for God but I know now that you declared me for yourself.” Lucifer strode to the priest with such anger and speed that his feet scorched the stone. He seized the priest’s throat in his claws leaving black imprints on his pale flesh. “I want...nothing...to do...with...the likes...of you...” he growled with an anger that strangled his words. The terrified silence of the man calmed Lucifer enough to speak but he tightened his grip on the man’s neck. “I don’t know who you are but I can assure you, any sins that you have committed belong entirely to you.”  
The priest struggled against the devil’s fingers to speak, “But it was you that made the children so lovely, so trusting…” 

Without conscious thought, Lucifer’s leathered wing sliced the air and when its needle dewclaw cut the priest’s throat, the head toppled off like a bruised melon. Lucifer’s self-surprise quickly flashed back to hatred as he watched the wet gob of the priest’s brainstem began to throb and grow back into a head. The priest gasped and spat out liquid from his new throat and kept talking. “You gave me the desire for them and kept me from being pure for God.” Lucifer’s anger swelled and rattled through the chamber, echoing across his entire kingdom and beyond to seek a roar of release. He knew that somewhere on Earth, tectonic plates shuddered and made an earthquake. 

He took a step back from the priest and locked him in his fiery gaze. “You listen to me, you disgusting monster. I will have nothing to do with your punishment. You are the judge and executioner of your own fate, you always have been. You will never leave this chamber but instead you shall spend eternity whittling away the flesh from your own bones.” Lucifer produced a dull pen knife from thin air with the flick of his red wrist and placed it in the priest’s sweaty hand. Lampblack danced with dark glee, giggling “I shall help!” He cranked the lever on the rack and the priest’s ribcage cracked open, bones skittering onto the floor. Lucifer turned away when he saw the demon take on the personage of a young schoolgirl so he didn’t see what happened next. 

Amid the priest’s unintelligible screams, he heard the name “Trixie”. He turned back towards the entrance to the chamber but the door had bricked up with stone. He threw his monstrous weight against the wall but it didn’t even shudder. Lucifer had declared the priest’s fate to a private hell where even the devil wasn’t invited. Lampblack would be keeping him occupied until the demon got bored and not until then would Lucifer see him again. He had to question the inky demon; why had he led Lucifer to this chamber and claimed he had a special interest? Was it only his known vendetta against God’s disciples? Had the priest really said the name Trixie? Could it mean...could it really be…

Lucifer flew in a fury within Hell’s Nave like a bird caught inside a house. He perched on a buttress to catch his breath and gather his wild anger. If this human had abused Trixie-- _his Trixie_ \--on Earth, he had to do something about it. He had to know right now. No waiting for his demon to tire. He knew he could not pass through the gates of hell as a man. Amenadiel had seen to that. He remembered bitterly the vision he received from his dear brother once he took back his throne.

“I’m sorry, Luci. I’ve been charged with keeping you to your promise of ruling Hell. Our Father has blessed me again with his guidance and shown me the error of my sentimentality. Now that I reside in the Silver City with my child, I see how empty my life would have been without Him. Now I have a purpose again. To show my child the perfect life of Heaven and to keep you in Hell, where you belong. I wish it didn’t have to be this way Luci, I really do, but this was your choice. You chose to take back your place as the Prince of Hell and I’m going to help you keep that promise. If you resume human form outside the gates of Hell, Father and I will take action. I know now that my purpose was to help you do what is right.” 

Lucifer thought of his brother’s righteous and distant voice and his stone heart cracked just a little. He yowled in helpless pain. The sound was a tsunami across Hell that probably exploded in anguish against the shores of Japan. Then Lucifer became quiet. Swinging himself onto the balcony behind a buttress, he closed his eyes and made himself small. It took a minute to get the hang of it, as Lucifer hadn’t taken on the form of an animal in thousands of years. Black fur shot up all over his dwindling body, his devil fangs slipped into tiny needles and his hooves became paws. He was a black cat. While he ran down the dark halls of Hell, slid down tunnels of ash and climbed the great Black Gate, he thought to himself,

“Human spawn like kitties, don’t they?”

 

More chapters to come!


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe groaned into her pillow when her alarm went off. She knew it was time to get Trixie up for school but she still tried to chase her dreams back under the covers. She could almost trace the trail of her last dream, like a whiff of expensive cologne. Of Lucifer and his gleaming eyes when he told her she was his love. It was just a memory of a memory now. She removed her comforter from her face to brave the morning light, expecting to see the cheerful face of her daughter in her doorway. Trixie wasn’t there and the house was quiet. She pulled herself out of bed and hastily dressed, putting a heartsick Chloe back to bed and summoning the mother.

She went to Trixie’s room and found her daughter still in bed. “Hey Trixie, it’s time to get ready. Why aren’t you up yet?” Trixie stirred but did not get up. “Are you sick, monkey?” The girl sat up and sighed. “No, just tired. Bad dreams.” Chloe felt a stab of camaraderie. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Here, let’s get you dressed. Do you want to wear the yellow duck top today?” Trixie hesitated then grabbed a dark top from her chair. “I want to wear the one Maze got me.” Chloe examined the pleather top and blanched at the cheetah print and studs. It wasn’t the mother Chloe that answered “Whatever you want, hun. If it makes you feel like yourself.” She was grateful for the smile Trixie gave her and realized how long it had been since she had seen it. Did her little girl miss Lucifer just as much as she did? Or maybe… “Trixie, are you still thinking about Father Clement’s death? You knew him a little bit.”

Trixie froze and looked down. “No. It’s okay, I’ll get dressed. Just give me a minute.” Before she knew it, Chloe was shooed out of the room and the door closed in front of her face. Her little girl was almost a teenager now, she should expect this kind of behavior more often. She made herself coffee and Trixie’s lunch before attempting to arrange her hair and dress like a grown up. If anyone at the department noticed her slovenly appearance lately, they hadn’t said anything. She reached for a parchment manuscript as she slurped her coffee. She hadn’t been able to stop researching Lucifer’s origins ever since she knew the truth about him, and her obsession had only increased since his departure. She couldn’t keep it from her work life either, constantly drawing mythological connections to her cases. She saw the looks on her coworkers’ faces when she ranted about metaphysics, fate and the eternal battle between good and evil.

She was particularly preoccupied with the manuscript she had in front of her, written in an obscure dialect of Aramaic that was almost impossible to translate but the few words she gleaned spoke of the “devil”, “hell on earth” and most arresting, “a moment of love”. She noticed that Trixie was staring at her and she flustered up a defense, but she saw that her daughter wasn’t about to question her. This sullen mood of hers apparently robbed her of her usual curiosity. “Are you sure you’re okay, monkey?” Trixie shrugged and grabbed her lunch. The awkward moment was interrupted by a loud meow at their door.

Trixie ran to open the door and in jumped a small black cat. It sat on their welcome mat and began grooming itself as if it belonged there. “Mommie! Can we keep it?!” Trixie squealed and scooped it up. It jumped from her hands and settled back at the same spot to resume preening. “No no no no no, we are not keeping a cat!” Chloe announced. “But mommy! You said whatever I want to make me feel like myself!” The cat allowed the girl to pet it, aware of its inarguable cuteness.

Chloe could not think of a good retort so she shooed the girl out the door. “We are going to school and work now, young lady. We don’t have time for this.” She opened the car door and the cat jumped in before she could grab it. “See, mommy?! He belongs with us!” Trixie scooted in next to the cat so her mother couldn’t reach him. Chloe let out an exasperated sigh and got in the driver’s seat. “I am dropping this thing off halfway down the road and he can find his way back to wherever he came from.” Chloe swore she heard the cat meow in gleeful scorn. Trixie laughed. “You’re funny when you’re exasperated, mommy.” “Oh, I am? You and that cat are quite a team, making me crazy. You’re just as bad as…”Chloe went quiet and gripped the steering wheel. They rode in silence for a bit before Trixie spoke. “Mommy, what was that paper you were reading? It looked like the kind of old stuff Lucifer had in his place.”

Chloe gulped down the ball in her throat and gathered her thoughts. “You’re right. It’s kind of like that stuff. It might help me figure out a little bit more about him. I’ve been wondering…” she had to think of how to put this to her precocious but innocent daughter, “A lot of old books talk about why humans are here and what we’re meant for. Some tell the truth and some don’t. I’m trying to figure out which one is which.” Trixie thought about that for a minute. “Mommy, are we Christian now? We’ve spent a lot of time at that church…” Chloe couldn’t help but scoff. “No sweetie, I don’t think they have all the answers either.”

“I don’t think they’re good. I think they’re liars.” Chloe was shocked by Trixie’s reply. She stared at her daughter through the rearview mirror. She saw that the cat had come to settle on the girl’s lap and was flexing his claws. His eyes were closed and she heard him purring. “They might be.” Chloe admitted. “Trixie...what do you think it means to have ‘a moment of love’?” Trixie looked confused. “I dunno. That’s weird. Why are you asking that?” Chloe couldn’t really answer. She was embarrassed to have said this much and put back on the mother pose. “It’s nothing, monkey. We’re here. Have a good day at school.” Chloe opened the child lock and Trixie jumped out. She tried to catch the cat as she lost her lap, but he disappeared. Trixie looked near tears. “It’s okay, sweetie. Cats are like that. Maybe he has to go home now.”

A tear trickled down Trixie’s cheek and she whispered, “But I could’ve been his home.” Chloe’s face went red and her own eyes filled with empathetic tears. She ruffled her daughter’s hair. “I’m glad he was nice to you. You looked like you needed it.” Suddenly Trixie cocked her head and the corner of her mouth turned up. “Hey, maybe that’s what it means. Maybe love isn’t a big thing, but just a moment. You know, when someone is nice to you when you need it.” Chloe’s mouth dropped open and the girl skipped away towards the school doors.

She drove towards work and thought about what her daughter had said. If love was a moment, then surely the Devil had multiple if fleeting moments. Some of them--she hoped with desperation--were with her. But a moment of love with the devil was not enough to make him stay, she thought bitterly. It was too painful to dwell on this train of thoughts, but impossible to distract herself with a different subject, so she thought instead about another passage in the same manuscript. The part that linked to the first prophecy: “Hell on Earth”. She knew what she _thought_ that meant: an Earth full of demons, fire and chaos, yet something in her sought another explanation.

In a post Lucifer-enlightenment world, Chloe could no longer see Hell, Heaven, wickedness or goodness in black and white. Lucifer took back his place in Hell to keep the demons at bay, but what were they? The #4 speed dial on Chloe’s phone would say they could be a laugh, the life of the party, the snarky fashion police or a friend who always had your back. Chloe sighed in exhaustion. She couldn’t go on like this much longer. These endless questions racing through her head, her sleepless nights, red eyes and aching heart. She replayed their last scene like a worn out tape being endlessly rewound. Her grip on Lucifer’s neck to press his lips against hers and the mingling of their tears on her cheek.

She knew more about the universe now than ever before, but felt more lost than she ever thought possible. He had told her that she was meant for Heaven and he was not. Lucifer never lied but Chloe comforted herself with this conviction: he was so often wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

Lucifer knew just which window in the Decker house that had a lock that wouldn’t latch. In his early days with the detective, he found he could reach through this window and unlock the front door. As he pounced through it in the form of a black cat, he wondered why she had never gotten it fixed. _So irresponsible, detective. You might as well have a sign above your door, “No worries, ye who enter”!_ He was quite liking this feline form, so agile and inconspicuous. Still, he made a bit of a mess as he jumped from table to table, spilling papers from their precarious stacks. _My, my, someone has been busy. And a right slob,_ he thought while trying to shake off the mustard from his paw. He was well aware of the detective’s religious studies since his unmasking but wasn’t quite expecting her home to resemble the Coptic Museum. _Rubbish...Hebrew rubbish...oh, ‘The Back Door of Solomon’, I’ll bookmark that for later...Mormon nonsense...what language is this? Is that Na’vi? Bloody James Cameron. Hang on,_ Lucifer paused over a parchment on the coffee table.

He scanned the document and tried to recall his command of Mandaic, a sacred Aramaic dialect used for liturgical texts. It was terribly familiar but newer and somehow also older. _‘When the Devil walks the earth’...No, the ‘Adversary’. ‘When the Adversary walks the earth and joins with his’...that’s ‘counterpart’._ Lucifer noted how the Mandaic did not say ‘love’. _‘..joins his counterpart, then God’s love leaves earth’._ Lucifer was arrested with wonder. This was a completely different take on the prophecy that had blown a chasm between him and Chloe as deep as Hell and took him down with it. There was still more. _The gates will open then close, initiated by the Moment of love._ That was indeed ‘love’. _Then no God is all God. Hidden knowledge is all knowledge. The high branch bears fruit and feeds all._ That’s all it said. Suddenly Lucifer was exasperated and kicked off the table, the ancient parchment fluttering to the floor. He didn’t give a bloody damn about dead words written by dead men right now. Only one dead man mattered at this moment.

 _Ah ha,_ he thought. There, in a pile of Trixie’s drawings and the detective’s police work, was a newspaper article about this Father Clement’s death. He had been listening at Trixie’s bedroom window this morning and his cat ears heard Chloe’s question and Trixie’s sharp intake of breath. More than that, he could feel her fingers painfully knot into his black fur when her mother spoke of the Church. Father Clement had been brutally murdered for reasons unknown or unstated in the article. The act was committed by a young man who used to be his parishioner. Lucifer saw the smiling face in the photograph and despite the intact chest cavity below the white collar, he made no mistake.

He wasted no time and dove towards the loose window. But he found it stuck. He made more attempts against it but his half stone’s weight couldn’t make it budge. He felt a curious panic grow inside him. He ran around the room, searching for an escape. His paw got caught on a blue coat on the floor. It had red stripes near the collar and it smelled so strongly of...his panic grew and he clawed his way up the drapes, knowing there was no exit anywhere. He was flooded with stimuli through his keen cat senses. As each familiar smell and sight brought a torrent of feelings, he knew he was completely unequipped to stem the tide. _No no no no no NO I cannot BE HERE any longer, I don't BELONG HERE! I must get out, get out, get out!_ He knocked down candles and picture frames but found purchase on the same small window’s ledge. From this proximity, his weight finally wedged open the latch and he scrambled out into the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He wasn’t sure if the demons had noticed his absence. No soul stopped him as he went to his quarters and shifted: black--red--white. He looked at his human mask in the mirror and saw that the panic had never left his eyes. He was naked and alone in the bowels of the Earth but he took refuge in his solitude. He fell to his bed, wrapped himself up in the memory of her scent and wept.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Lucifer strode into his first appointment the next morning, in the east wing’s anatomical theatre, he was startled to see Lampblack along with two other demons; Winebald and Boneface. They were nervous, but clearly had some kind of secret amusement between them that instantly irritated Lucifer. “Come out with it, now. Whatever is terribly funny to nitwits like you three shouldn’t take too long to explain.” The demons knew to approach the Lord of Hell carefully when he was in a mood like this and they each seemed to be silently urging the other to speak first. Boneface stood up and made a slight bow; quite difficult to do in lamellar armour made entirely of hand bones. “Master, we know you left Hell last night to go back to Earth but--” Lampblack jumped in as he saw the ire flame in Lucifer’s eyes, “--we want to help!” Lucifer had to pause at that last word, as he had never heard it uttered in Hell except in irony. “Help? Whatever could you mean?”

Boneface cleared his throat but continued. “Some of us have been talking…”, _“Plotting, you mean?”_ Lucifer broke in with force. “Behind my back, sniggering, making plans for a coup? It’s been done before and that didn’t go so well for Dromos and his ilk, did it?” Lampblack dared to insert himself again, “No! Dromos was an idiot. We mean no disrespect. In fact, we want to continue what you started. Master, in the years since you’ve been on Earth, I don’t think you realize what’s been brewing in the kingdoms by just the act of your defiance by leaving Hell. Many of us demons want to go to Earth but not like Dromos and Squee. Not the mindless animals that jumped into the first cursed cadavers on Earth. We want what you fought for in the First Rebellion. We want the freedom to choose.” Lucifer was in shock at the eloquence of this little black demon whose voice barely held more resonance than an angry hornet.

Winebald spoke for the first time and his dry, elderly voice rattled with effort. “Our King Lucifer, we still believe in you. Don’t forget why we followed you in the Fall. You dared to question the dictatorship of God and you were rewarded with eternal damnation. So were we. We think we deserve more. We think You do.” Lucifer had absolutely no idea how to reply. Nothing in his life for literal eons could’ve prepared him for the heresy coming from these infernal mouths. Still, he vaguely recognized the language, the fervor, the foolheartiness. They were the words of Heaven’s most beautiful angel when he spoke over a sea of faces in The Silver City and bid the immortals to follow him outside the gates and never return.

He began to laugh and could not stop until tears streamed down his face. _“You idiots!_ You fucking imbeciles! If you’ve spent all these years pining after The Adversary and his empty fucking promises, you’ve missed the boat. _That isn’t me._ You followed a toddler having a tantrum as he got kicked out of preschool. Surprise! I’m no revolutionary, no freedom fighter! I’m the World’s Biggest Loser.” He knew he shouldn’t let them see him unhinged but he had no control over what he was saying nor could he see the white human skin rippling over his hide. Boneface stared openly at Lucifer’s ambivalence manifested and reached for him. Lucifer recoiled, then threw Boneface across the hall. The demon struck the wall and crumpled but brought himself back up and spoke, his voice trembling. “That is you. You are Satan, The Adversary. If you take back up the cause, multitudes will follow.”

Lucifer strode away from them so as to not face them when he spoke. “So, what? I lead a second rebellion against my Father, you demons rise from Earth’s graves like the walking dead and Heaven’s legions cut you all down in one united blow.” Boneface’s voice was quiet but grave. _“Not united.”_ Lucifer faced him. “Do you think my brother Amenadiel will stand by and allow this? I couldn’t step one foot outside the gate without him destroying us all.” Boneface smiled. It was an eerie crooked smile with far too many teeth. “He won’t. It is he who is leading the rebellion up above.”


End file.
